Where Defeat Is Not An Option

Obama found out this last week that just setting a foreign policy isn’t the same as carrying it out. Obama long ago said that use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a “red line” – and then he did precisely nothing to garner domestic and international support for a course of action should Syria cross that red line. When it became alleged that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons (something I’m not at all convinced about – though, of course, the rat bastards who govern Syria are fully capable of such savagery), Obama found himself all alone. After blustering a bit about how we can go it alone and he doesn’t need Congressional authorization, Obama backed down – and passed the buck to Congress.

On the left this is being lauded as a brilliant move – it puts the onus, so it is claimed, on Congress. The idea is that Congress must authorize action – thus getting Obama off the hook for taking an ill-advised action – or bear the blame for refusing to act while Syria’s government murders children with poison gas (amazing how our liberals will still say its all “for the children” while they continue to back abortion which kills millions of children). In the liberal mind, either way this works out for Obama – we’ll either get the military action and Obama is a hero, or the Congress will look like heartless bastards, and the Democrats will put full blame on the GOP for being the leading heartless bastards. I don’t see it that way.

What Obama is asking for is permission to pointlessly lob a few missiles at sites which will be long-since cleared out of valuable targets by the time we act. Such strikes will not alter the course of the Syrian civil war, they will not stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons and, indeed, will probably encourage further use (nothing encourages aggressors more than a weak response to aggression) and such strikes will do nothing to convince the world that America is a power to be feared. I’d rather take the alleged heat for being a heartless bastard for not acting than bear the odium of participating in a perfectly useless action. The Congressional GOP should vote this down.

If we vote for anything it should be an act which instructs the President to seek an international coalition for dealing with the Syrian crisis with a mind towards thwarting Iranian and al-Qaeda aims in Syria. In short, pass a resolution which calls for a rational foreign policy. In this resolution should be a general authority to use force in defense of the United States and our allies. Throw the ball right back in Obama’s court – he’s the one who made this foreign policy failure, and he should be stuck with trying to clean it up.

UPDATE: The case for war is made here – astonishingly at First Things, usually a place where first-rate thinking is displayed. You can read it, if you like, but the nutshell is that we’d better get a-killing Syrians lest President Obama be shown to be completely ineffectual. Heretofore, I had always rated The War of Jenkin’s Ear to be the most misbegotten war in human history, but this would displace it: we’re to go to war to make the world safe for poltroonery. Because Obama is afraid to lead and at his wit’s end (its a short walk, under the best of circumstances), we’re to send our best and bravest out to kill Syrians in an effort which is to be geared merely to avoid global mockery of Obama.

Sorry, ain’t buying – a great power can survive idiots being in charge, but we can’t survive going to war to cover up for an idiot.

“…Commentators said it was the first time a British prime minister had lost a vote on war since 1782, when parliament effectively conceded American independence by voting against further fighting to crush the colony’s rebellion…”

When it became alleged that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons (something I’m not at all convinced about

I haven’t paid close attention to the news the last couple days, but, as recently as Friday there was much confusion about the details of the “alleged” gas attack. It wasn’t known what kind of gas it was, how it was delivered or who was responsible. That all sounds to me like a lot of smoke and mirrors. And many of the same people who are all bent out of shape over this didn’t bat an eye when Sadam gassed over 5,000 Kurds.

Obama has been playing chicken and losing. He now wants to get the 300 pound bully to back him up and hope Assad chickens out and leaves. Obama has no plans to actually use the authorization of force, he is just embarrassing the U.S. and hopes that Congress will go along so he can pretend some more that he wants to act.

I say that Congress should turn down the authorization of force and instead send over a full fledged Declaration of War on the Syrian Government and the Al Qaeda backed rebel groups. Don’t authorize the President…..Put it right there in the Declaration of War: 1) The President of the United States says that Syria has used chemical weapons, therefore we Declare War and instruct the President without prejudice or delay, with the full force of the U.S. Military to eliminate the Syrian Government, Al Qaeda backed rebel forces and known supporters of those two enemies.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the President’s drawers when he reads that.

An interesting idea Doug, but still a political move instead of a national interest one.

If the idea is to go to war, Congress can declare a state of war and authorize the C-in-C to use military force to prosecute the war. If the idea is to deny Obama cover Congress can deny authorizations and allow the CnC to exercise his Constitutional authority to use military force as he sees a fit in spite of congressional action.

Now, to Syria and al Qaeda; as in the war on terror, al Qaeda isn’t a country, nation, city-state or principality so on whom are we “declaring”? Since al Qaeda is fighting against the Syrian government declaring war on both would be like Congress declaring war on Germany, Japan, Hungary, Italy and Russia in 1941. Not that that would have been a bad thing, just a little hard to picture the Yalta Summit seating arrangements ~ impractical.

Obama’s blunder was making the stupid statement (line to cross) in the first place. But, like all of his international diplomatic ineptitudes he received no scrutiny form a sycophantic press which allowed the idiotic statement to stand. It should have been challenged at the time but just like the “I’ll meet with (NK’s Kim Jung Il or Iran’s Mahmoud I’m-a-Dinky-Dog) with no preconditions in my first year as president” statement, the press and the Obama dung-beetles hoped his words would never come back to snap him in the ass.

But they did.

Now he’s backed the US into an unwinnable situation costing credibility, transmitting weakness, and emboldening our real enemies.

Our resolve will be tested and we have no leader to look to that will hold the nation evil-doers in check by the mere threat of US action. A static or stationary power understands the power of the military and despite sabre rattling those nations aren’t likely to test both the military and our resolve. (shadowy groups with no static nation are not held by such logic).

Now Congress has a Hobson’s Choice; authorize the president’s request and begin an ill-advised adventure, or deny the president’s request and display our new world castration.

The Ruling Class is circling the wagons around Obama – trying via military action to get him out of the jam he got himself in to. But, unless we can get 100,000 people in to DC by next Monday, it will happen…only by showing the Congressional GOP that we are anti-war in Syria will they back away from pulling Obama’s bacon out of the fire.

One of the many reasons we are so contemptuous of this President is his constant can continual demeaning of the United states here and abroad. Bowing to Arab Dictators, apologizing for US blood and treasure being used to save Europe’s sorry asses every time they start another pissing contest with one-another, disdain for the Law of Our Land, and promising to cut the United States down to a size he can handle. Obama’s latest bungle has put our credibility on the line for every thing our founders’ believed in, all the things we’ve stood for and all the things American’s have fought and died for.

For a President, any president to threaten the use of our military should a government or a people commit an act that has world-wide condemnation and then back down simply emboldens the enemies and proves worthless the American Experiment.

Now we need rational Legislators to determine if there is sufficient evidence that Assad ignored the threat, committed or participated in the Act, then authorize the military to engage in their endeavor to achieve the goal of punishing and preventing a repeat of the Act.

At this point we know:
1) Using chemical weapons on citizens has world wide condemnation, codified by treaties.
2) Chemical weapons were used in Syria against citizens.
3) The President stated beforehand that military action would follow such an Act.

What we don’t know:
1) Who used the chemical weapons against citizens.
2) What is the nature of the military force to be used for retribution
3) What is the nature of the military force to be used as a deterrent.

There are many other questions, such as, why this Act needed to be answered when the previous 95,000 acts of cruelty toward civilians didn’t, why Obama made his idiotic “Red Line” statement in the first place, and what does the Administration hope to achieve?

An angry mob with pitchforks storming the Capital battlements isn’t going to answer any of these questions, hold anyone accountable or pull the US’s bacon out of the fire Obama has placed us in.

M. NoonanSeptember 4, 2013 / 1:09 pm

But I still like an angry mob – helps make the point. But, that aside, the course of action is at the ballot boxes and then legislative reform of the War Powers Act.

One thing, though – Syria is not a signatory of the chemical weapons treaties and so is not bound by their provisions. Essentially, Obama is trying to enforce a law in Syria which isn’t valid for that country. Its like trying to enforce California law in Oregon.